Dysfnctnl85

I've been tossing around this idea of growing corn for producing ethanol. I have a friend who is very well versed in the intracacies of producing ethanol. He's from Tennessee so I'll leave it at that .



I've read as much as I could search for, and it appears that there is still speculation as to how Ethanol wears engine parts/fuel system components.



Is this a real alternative to running premium fuel? Do you need a high-pressure fuel pump? What about a specific type of fuel filter? Is it legal to run JUST ethanol in a street car?



What about all of you tuners out there -- are you getting requests for ethanol tunes?

nismo convert

You do realize the amount of corn you would have to grow, and the amount of energy it takes to create ethanol right...

Lynn E. Hanover

All American built cars after the 2000 model year were supposed to be equiped to run E85, or 85% ethanol and 15% gasoene. I tried a tank of it coming back from Texas last year, and noticed it takes more throttle to go the same speed. It has a higher octane rating, but it requires that about 30% more fuel be burned to produce the same power. The CART people and many sprint car series use it. Great when tubocharging.



Takes out more heat when it vaporizes, so smaller radiators are used. Systems are usually drained and flushed with gasolene to prevent rusting and seal damage (swelling). Ethanol and methanol have both been used as ,motor fuels for years. After WWII, Honda started out by producing little motors that used friction drive on the front wheel of bicycles. His hook was that he cooked off and distilled discarded plant roots and garbage, to make his own methanol. Methanol can also be produced from natural gas, and by distilling scrap

cellulose (wood polymer) and is called wood alcohol. It is toxic.



Ethanol is distilled from grains and is the alcohol you find in beer and spirits. For commercial use, it is denatured. A foul tasting chemical is added so people will not drink it.



Because America is not now geared up to make huge quantities for motor fuel (yet) there are giant ineffieciencies, such as spending more energy to make a gallon than is contained in a gallon.

You have to cook the stuff just like moonshiners, but on a grand scale. That and the low BTUs per pound gets you a big net loss in producing energy. Gasolene still beats it on cost per BTU. The do gooder push for ethanol and methanol to take over from that awful gasolene, has caused shortages in corn and corn products, and that drives up the price of feeds, and that drives up the price of cooking supplies, corn starch and corn syrup. Also poultry, beef and pork prices have gone up and will stay up until a leadership with the ***** not to pander to the tree huggers is elected.



The earth is constantly manufacturing crude oil. We have a few hundred year supply in known reserves, off both coasts, and in the gulf. In Wyoming in oil sands, in Canada in deposits and oil shale and oil sands.

In the North slope and in ANWR. There are several thousand wells here in Ohio that are shut down. Because the oil from the mideast is cheaper. The oil companies don't need to build any refineries, they are allowed to buy refined motor fuels and pass the very steep cost on to you. If your production costs are nearly zero, and you are making the highest profits in history, why would you want to change that?



So you announce that since oil products are strategic to the defense of America, and we will in the near future reduce oil imports to zero. Then you drill for oil where you already know it exsists. In the gulf and ANWR. If you limit the amount of crude and refined product the oil companies are allowed to import, they will recover it here, and if refining capacity is not adequate they will built more. About 62 cents of the price of each gallon of fuel is taxes. If you want lower prices and and quick, start writing letters and sending Emails to you senators about eliminating all federal taxes on motor fuels. All of that money was supposed to go into the federal highway fund. Do you think it does?



Reduce the 24 gasolene formulas to 6 formulas. Instant lower cost. The towel heads would have a cow.

No more billions each year from America. Used to finance other towel heads that kill Americans.



What happens if the **** hits the fan over Iraq and Iran, and Iran sinks a few ships in the gulf and blocks all oil supplies from the mid east. In 30 days we are screwed. All available oil stocks would be used by the military and you and I would be walking.



But I run on as usual.



Lynn E. Hanover

ilia

I've run ethanol on a GSX-R turbo engine.



Typically, you have to run larger injectors to flow enough E85 to make everything work, so I'd imagine that the injectors required to do this on a rotary would be absolutely huge. This may lead to issues with tuning for driveability, I would think.



Various rubber seals not designed for ethanol can deteriorate if used with ethanol, but you can always replace them with different material stuff, that will last.



You can run pretty high boost with the stuff, as it has a very high octane rating.

j9fd3s

thats what really irks me about california, in particular.



we've legislated our own formula for gas, so its $.50 more, and then we complain about it?



and then of course, our roads are terrible. the city of chicago has better roads, and they have frosts! we dont.

Dysfnctnl85

I don't know about the calculations for personal use. I'd have to get some numbers from my friend. But more on topic, couldn't this be used as a substitute for C16?

Dysfnctnl85

Now I've heard this "wear" argument go both ways. Is there any sort of definitive authority for whether or not ethanol degrades components in a gasoline system?



As an aside, Lynn, to your posts. They are always informative and thought-provoking. As far as running it in a rotary -- have you?

Lynn E. Hanover

Not me. It never came up.



It mixes with water, and is used in fuel to absorb water and allow it to process through a fuel system without stopping the engine. It also attracts water and mixes readily with it.



So steel or iron parts, including the fuel tank will suffer. Piston engined military planes used to use water and alcohol injection at high boost to help cool the engine, and add octane effect. In jet engines as well to add ejected mass in the exhaust flow.



There will soon be an ethanol plant here in Newark Ohio. This puts food corn and feed corn in competition with imported oil. So if we have a bad year in Ohio and elswhere, do we quit driving, or quit eating?



The tree huggers and the limp wristed leadership who kiss their asses, have pushed us to the brink of insanity. We sit on a 500 year supply of oil, yet we let our oil companies buy foreign oil for less than we can extract it here. So our president advises us that we are addicted to oil, like we have been shooting up and snorting the stuff, and are therefore responsible for this situation. When stupid policies and stupid people who have no idea how the world works, are at fault.



If we would just sit on a hill and buy a coke for our enemies everything would be just fine. We wouldn't need that nasty old oil, and on and on they go. Until one of their kids needs an operation or their SUV breaks down and they.....Need.........us barbarians........us addicts to save their asses time and time again.



Once they get what they want, it's back to the tree hugging, like they never needed any of our help. The religion of ignorence about how things work. Only available in very successful countries, where excess wealth allows such stupid people to survive. Where they will even survive. And they are ever so smart.

Smarter than you can ever be. And they must help us run our lives because we are not smart enough to see the bright shiny path of tree hugging that they have laid before us.



So when I am elected........



There will be no food corn in your tank. The towel heads will be sitting on oil that a much smaller number of people want. What a pitty. There will be a wall to keep the towel heads out and everybody else as well. If another 911 is gifted to us, the towel heads will loose there beloved shrines in a single blinding white flash.



If a country supported any such against us, the retribution would be so swift and so horrible that the countries next to them would **** their pants. You can make this turn out any way you want. Register and vote, every time. Educate yourself about your country and the the constitution.



Go to meetings. Sit in on the public readings of new laws. Most are made in a vacuum by tree huggers. Because you didn't show up at the public hearing to tell them how stupid they are.



If our military is busy killing Moslem extreamists don't biother them. Killing Moslems in the mid east is better than killing them in New Jersey, or California, with so many crossing from Mexico each night.



But I run on as usual.......



Lynn E. Hanover

j9fd3s

i was thinking about it this morning, and clintons stragety of distracting everyone with the lewinski thing, while he secretly made some resposible choices, was quite brilliant.



i'm sorta thinking financially, he made good strides to balance the budget, and narrow the trade gap, something that went out the window with bush.

Lynn E. Hanover

That was a joke, right. You don't really think that?



Lynn E. Hanover